I haven't seen
Robert Kagan's 9/12 Washington Post piece diaried elsewhere; if so, I'll delete.
Kagan makes the assertion that no one based support for the invasion of Iraq on the Bush administration's statements or evidence. Rather, it was all Clinton's fault! Or the UN's!
He produces a long list of names, mostly of Clinton's cabinet members together with a sprinkling of those of his colleagues. Cheney? No. Rumsfield? No. Condoleeza Rice? Surely you jest. It was Madeleine Albright!!!
A bit more after the jump. Also, see my question below directed towards rhetoricians.
He particularly cites Richard Butler:
I recall being particularly affected by the book Butler published in 2000, "The Greatest Threat: Iraq, Weapons of Mass Destruction, and the Growing Crisis of Global Security," in which the chief U.N. inspector, after years of chasing around Iraq, wrote with utter certainty that Hussein had weapons and was engaged in a massive effort to conceal them from the world.
Nowhere does he mention that Butler opposed the invasion.
Bush appears only incidentally in this narrative, as the recipient of some letters.
It will be interesting to see who the neocons eventually settle on to blame. Looking at Armando's front page entry about Krystol's effort in the same vein, it appears another track seeks to blame Rumsfield for his incompetent prosecution of the war. Has anyone else seen other targets as the neocons seek to throw down the sword?
[Rhetoricians: is there a formal term in the study of rhetoric for an essay assigning blame? sort of the opposite of an "Apologia"? There must be.]
Also, I note that there's been an upswing among conservatives in quoting from classical authors' philosophical reflections on war and history. A bad sign.
Conservatives certainly have a lot of blame to disperse these days.